


Unexpected Complications

by rhetoricalrogue



Series: the modern adventures of BB Carlisle [1]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Complete, Found Families, Gen, Unexpected Surprises
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-14
Updated: 2017-01-30
Packaged: 2018-09-08 12:37:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8845408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhetoricalrogue/pseuds/rhetoricalrogue
Summary: After invoking the Law of Surprise during a routine job, Lambert finds more than what he bargained for.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [asaucyginger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/asaucyginger/gifts).



> Written as part of this year's NaNoWriMo short story compilation. There may be more to this series, especially now that I'm getting some headcanon built up.

Out of all the minor nuisance monster types, Lambert hated nekkers the most. Well, maybe not the _most_ ; rotfiends did rank above them solely for the penchant they had of exploding before dying and spraying decayed guts everywhere. But that was another rant for another time. Now, it was three in the afternoon and he had been called away from his usual coffeehouse haunt, his laptop and his blog update to clear out of nest of the little bastards that had silently infested an apartment complex’s basement.

Lambert rolled his eyes. _Yeah, silently. I’ll bet._ It was more than likely that the landlord at the shitty rundown apartments had known about them and hadn’t done anything about it until the problem had gotten too big to avoid and a professional needed to be called in. Lambert took aim and shot another nekker right between the eyes, the silver bullets he’d freshly casted at the beginning of the week leaving a smoking hole in the monster’s forehead. While he definitely appreciated the more modern approach to monster hunting, Lambert still fought with steel and silver blades as backup when heavy firepower was a no-go. Longswords were well and good out in the open, but there were some places in city environments that called for shorter blades for mobility reasons. It really wouldn’t do if his range of motion was hampered by squeezing around tight corners in basements or attics, which was why Lambert never went anywhere without keeping both types as part of his monster hunting kit in his car at all times.

Monsters defeated, he tossed a bomb into the nest in order to make sure it posed no future threats to the people living upstairs. Lambert was grateful that the nekkers hadn’t decided to create their home away from home any closer to water or sewer lines, which would have complicated things. Back in the old days, all he had to worry about with explosives was disturbing a field or perhaps someone’s house foundation. Now along with the city’s infrastructure, there were underground electrical, gas, internet, and who knew what other type of lines buried all over the place to worry about, meaning that if it was deemed that he had hit one of them in the process of taking care of the problem, then the repairs would come out of his pay. And it wasn’t as if he had the luxury of time to call each entity and get them to locate their lines either: monsters didn’t give a shit about forty-eight hour notices. You don’t destroy the nest within hours, then you just spent all the bullets killing off the current wave of nasties for nothing because a new wave was right on its heels.

“Damn it,” he said, wiping his brow with the back of his forearm. Summer was _not_ aggregable with leather and Kevlar, but he sure as shit wasn’t going to go anywhere without being properly outfitted. At least his current armor was a whole light lighter than the old chainmail, even if he still roasted in it the same way. He was really looking forward to post-hunt drinks back at Kaer Morhen. He could almost taste the beer now: the cold, fresh from the back of the fridge bottle frosty in his hands as he took it with him in the shower. The fact that Geralt would put up a huge stink about him stealing his special imported brew would make the beer taste that much better. Maybe later he could talk Geralt and Eskel into going out and grabbing a burger and another round of drinks or three. There was a dive bar on the east side of town that all three of them liked and it’d been too long since they had a boy’s night out.

The shrill scream from somewhere up above tore him out of his planning. The snarl of an angry nekker got him hauling ass upstairs where he was just in time to see the monster shred its claws through some guy’s chest. One silver bullet fired point blank stopped the stray monster, but it looked as if his help had come too late.

“Ah, _damn it_ ,” Lambert moaned, realizing that the monster’s victim was the landlord himself. “Come on, buddy, stay with me!” He pressed his hands against the wounds, but it was no use. Bright red blood welled up from between Lambert’s fingers and he watched as the man’s eyes glazed over as life left him.

“Well, shit.” There went his paycheck. He sat back on his heels and wiped his hands off on his thighs without thinking.

“We have a 10-54?” Lambert looked up at the police officer who had run into the main office building, his gun drawn. Bjorn Eklund was one of those odd six degrees of Kevin Bacon people that seemed to pop up in someone’s life every so often. He was a cop freshly transferred from Skellige, and usually one of the first on the scenes to confirm that it was safe for citizens to come back to their homes during Lambert’s citywide monster hunts. He wasn’t a bad guy, in fact, he and Lambert had a sort of professional rapport that had bled over to after shift drinks and games of pool every so often. The six degree of separation bit came in the diminutive form of one Marle Starling. Back in the day, Bjorn and Marle had dated and by the way that both of them had put it, they had been pretty damn serious, almost to the point of getting married. Something had happened though, and Lambert figured it wasn’t his place to pry, but they’d called it off, deciding to remain friends even if the relationship part hadn’t exactly worked. Bjorn and Marle’s friendship had rekindled when they had bumped into the other at the gym, neither of them realizing that the other had been a member, and just like that, Bjorn was part of Marle’s circle of friends again.

It wouldn’t be so bad, but for some reason, Eskel got a burr up his ass every time he and Bjorn were within five feet of the other. If Lambert hadn’t known any better, he’d say his strong yet silent brother in arms was _jealous_. But that was absurd; Eskel didn’t get jealous, especially over another man being friends with his Significant Other. But there was just something about Officer Eklund that rubbed Eskel the wrong way and it wasn’t a night until both men had traded verbal barbs and stink eyes. Lambert bet that the only thing keeping Eskel from throwing a punch was the fact that it would upset Marle.

10-54. The change in lingo jarred Lambert back to the present. He was fluent with enough radio code to know that meant _possible dead body_ for dispatch. “Change it to a 10-55. This is definitely a Coroner’s case.”

“Aw, damn it.” Lambert stood up and gave Bjorn room to check the landlord’s pulse. “I should have restrained him; he ran past me and back in here, insisting that he had to come back for something.”

“This isn’t your fault,” Lambert told him, watching as Bjorn shook his head and reached for the radio attached to his shoulder rig to solemnly report to dispatch that they’d need to contact the coroner’s office.

“The hell it isn’t. He threw an elbow at me and ran back in. I could have put him in the back of my squad car.” Bjorn sighed and stood up. “Is it clear?”

“As far as I know. Watch my back and we’ll do a full sweep of the area, just to make sure.” It wouldn’t take long; the complex was only a three story building that barely took up a half block, if even that.

“There wasn’t anything you could have done to stop that either,” Bjorn said quietly, gun drawn. His regular bullets technically _could_ kill a monster, but it would take nearly four times the amount than Lambert’s silver ammunition.

“I know.” It wasn’t the first time someone had died on one of his jobs and it definitely wouldn’t be the last, but it _had_ been the first time in at least twenty years that it had happened right there in front of him, Lambert unable to do anything to prevent it from happening.

“And it wasn’t…”

“Can we maybe _not_ talk about it, okay?” Lambert strained his ears, but he couldn’t hear any more monster noises coming from any of the units. “Did he have any next of kin?” It was a quietly asked question, his back to Bjorn as he investigated a maintenance shed.

“I don’t know. There’s going to have to be an investigation - I’ll get on it and let you know what I find.”

“Thanks, I appreciate it.” Holstering his gun, he stretched his arms up over his head and let out a sigh. “Guess I’m not getting paid.”

Bjorn gave him a look that said that the officer knew Lambert’s attempt at humor was his way of dealing with death. “Staci at the station is available, you know.”

“I’m not talking with the station shrink, even if she does have a great rack.”

“Then Marle. I can call her up and…”

Lambert cut him off. “Leave her out of it. It’s Thursday.” At Bjorn’s puzzled look, he elaborated. “Thursdays are her and Eskel’s date nights. I don’t want to bother her.” He tried to smile. “I’ll be fine, really.”

“Fine, but I’m not. We’re going out for drinks after my shift, deal?”

Lambert rolled his eyes. Really, there was no guess as to just how Bjorn and Marle had hooked up. The two of them were like mother hens. “Deal. But you’re buying the first round while I scam any college punks at pool.”

“You know, gambling isn’t quite illegal, but taking kids for fools pings on my cop radar.”

“Yeah, but it isn’t illegal, so you can’t do a damn thing.” Lambert ran a hand through his hair, belatedly realizing that his palms were still tacky with blood. “Aw, cripes. I’m a fucking mess.”

“Not going to argue with you there.” Bjorn pulled out a travel sized pack of wet wipes from some uniform pocket and handed Lambert a fresh one. “I don’t need to take your prints for evidence, so you can clean up.”

“Thanks, man.” Still wiping at his hands, Lambert leaned against the office door. “I’m not kidding when I’m saying that I’m pissed that I’m not getting paid.”

“Well, what can we do? I don’t know if the department could reimburse you.”

“I could just take something, then pawn it.”

Bjorn frowned. “That’s theft.”

“It isn’t if I invoke the Law of Surprise.”

Bjorn’s frown deepened. “You can’t. The guy you’re trying to steal stuff off of died.”

“Semantics.” Clearing his throat, Lambert looked Bjorn dead in the eye. “I saved a bunch of tenants from monsters just now; I hereby invoke the Law of Surprise and name you their deputy. Now…” Lambert thumbed through the landlord’s record book until he found which apartment the landlord had lived in. “Head to Unit 225B, pick the one thing you never expected to be there and bring it back to me. I’ll wait.”

“I still say this is wrong.”

“Come on, the guy is _dead_. It isn’t technically stealing if no one is around to claim it, right?”

Bjorn sighed, but went off. He knew just as well as Lambert did that certain words had power and going against them wasn’t recommended.

It wasn’t even five minutes later when Lambert heard Bjorn’s voice come down from the stairwell he had gone up. “Hey Lambert? That whole _bring back the thing you didn’t expect_ deal?”

“Yeah? What of it? You find anything good?”

Bjorn’s footsteps echoed down the silent stairway. “You could say that.”

“Well, out with it, guy. What did you…” Lambert’s words died when Bjorn came into view. The officer was carrying a tiny bundle wrapped in a pink blanket. “Find…is that what I think it is?” As if to confirm Lambert’s fears, the bundle let out a tiny hiccough before breaking out in very infant like crying.

“Fuck.”


	2. Chapter 2

There was something nice about the simple pleasure of sleeping between cool, fresh out of the box sheets and brand new pillows. This was doubly so when you were sharing the experience with someone who liked to cuddle, the soft patter of evening rain hitting the window making the experience exceptionally cozy.

The only thing that could possibly ruin the moment was the rude noise coming from downstairs. “Hmmm,” Marle asked, sleep making her slow. “Whazzat?” She yawned and stretched her leg over Eskel’s hip.

His arms tightened around her. “’S Lambert,” he mumbled, pressing a kiss against the side of her head. “Heard his car pull up in the drive.”

Marle was about to drift back to sleep, but then the insistent banging on the front door along with the constant ring of the doorbell woke her further. “What is he _doing_?” she asked, wigging out from underneath Eskel’s arms. She blindly felt around in the dark until she picked up a pair of discarded shorts and an oversized t-shirt from the floor. She stomped down the stairs when Lambert stopped banging his fist against the door and began to simply lean on the doorbell.

“You have a key,” Marle said, unlocking the door and yanking it open.

“Good, you’re home.” Lambert came in with some sort of crate covered in a cheerful looking blanket and a large beaten up bag slung across his chest, but he rushed past her and headed into the kitchen so fast that she couldn’t tell just what he was carrying.

“It’s one in the morning, Lambert. Of _course_ I’m home.” She pushed her hair out of her eyes and followed him into the kitchen where he was opening up cabinets at a frantic pace. “You know, like _sane_ people…will you _stop_? What are you doing?”

“You don’t have, I don’t know, small glasses, do you? Something for tiny hands? Where are those little glass bottles you save for your smoothies?”

“You aren’t making any sense. And just what…”Marle rubbed at her eyes and went over to her kitchen island to look in the crate Lambert had brought in. Now that she had a chance, she could have sworn the crate was actually a baby carrier. Her eyes widened as she pulled up the blanket and discovered a tiny bundle wrapped up in another blanket. “That’s a baby.”

“Yep. Tiny. Glasses. I know you have some.”

Marle stared at the infant sleeping in the carrier. “Lambert, that’s a _baby_.”

“Your powers of observation are staggering, truly.”

She frowned. “Just what are _you_ doing with a baby?”

"Well right now I'm looking for something to put formula in.  This kid eats like crazy and all her bottles are empty."  Lambert stopped rifling through her cabinets and leaned against the countertop, his hand coming up and scrubbing tiredly over his face. “Would you believe it if I said it was a long story?”

“Where are the parents?”

“One’s dead and the other fell off the face of the earth last month.” Lambert looked at her shocked expression and sighed. “Like I said, it’s complicated.”

“Lambert, you can’t just _pick up children_! They’re not stray puppies!”

“I know that!” The baby jumped at Lambert’s shout. “Oh shit, no…” He rounded the island and plucked the baby out of the carrier, awkwardly holding it under the armpits while trying to support its head with his forearm. The crying went from mere fussing to outright wailing in a matter of seconds. “Kid, I thought we had a deal!” Shifting the baby to the crook of his arm, Lambert raised his hand to begin tracing a Sign in the air.

Marle caught his wrist. “You can’t Axii an infant!”

“It worked great the last time I did this!”

She stared at him, horrified. “How do you know you aren’t giving this poor child permanent neurological damage? Give her here.” Marle shuffled the baby in her arms and began to unconsciously sway back and forth. It wasn’t long before the baby stopped crying and stared up at her. “Now, start from the beginning. What happened?” Marle listened as Lambert told her about the monster hunt, the landlord’s death, and Bjorn coming out of the recently deceased landlord’s apartment holding a baby.

She blinked. Carefully putting the now sleeping baby back in the carrier, Marle shook her head. “Melitile save me, but I haven’t heard something so _foolish_ in a long time!”

“I didn’t know that there was a kid in there!” They were both doing that weird stage whisper shouting, just so they wouldn’t wake the baby.

“Well, I guess that was a Surprise for both of you then!” They both turned when a floorboard creaked.

“What’s going on…” Eskel yawned, scratching his stomach underneath his shirt. He took in the tableau in front of him, eyes going from Lambert to Marle and back again before zooming in on the baby carrier between them. “That’s a baby.”

Lambert threw his hands in the air. “You two are just fucking brilliant, you know that?” To keep from explaining the whole story over, he started digging through Marle’s cabinets again, this time pulling out fresh coffee grinds and a French Press.

“Don’t cuss in front of the kid.” Eskel stood behind Marle and peered into the carrier curiously, his finger stroking the baby’s sock covered foot. “Can someone please explain why there’s a very young child on our kitchen island that clearly isn’t related to anyone present?”

Marle rolled her eyes and “Lambert invoked the Law of Surprise to get payment at the job he was at.”

Eskel’s eyebrows went to his hairline. “ _Seriously_? What part of…”

Lambert pointed his finger at him. “Don’t _even_ start with me, Mister I Got My ’83 Ford F-150 the Same Way.”

“ _That’s_ how you got your truck?”

“And I’m still taking care of it, aren’t I?” Eskel shook his head. “What were you expecting to get out of a crappy apartment complex anyway? And wasn’t this the job you were trying to pawn off to Geralt because you were in the middle of doing a column for your blog?”

“Which I _still_ haven’t updated, by the way!” Lambert reached for the freshly brewed coffee, but Marle beat him to it. “And I don’t know what I was expecting; the keys to a car maybe, or at the very least a new stash of porn.”

“Oh no you don’t, you’re punchy enough as it is. Gimmie.” Just so he wouldn’t drink it, she took the mug to the refrigerator and poured in a decent amount of cream. “You need sleep, not more caffeine.”

“Aw, come _on_ , Marle. I’ve been sitting in the police station for almost nine hours with nothing but shitty coffee Bjorn made. Do you know how awful that crap is, especially when you’re ass deep in Child Protective Services paperwork?” Sulkily, he accepted the glass of water she poured for him. “You have no idea how difficult it is to get custody of a kid without invoking the Law. CPS pulled an expedited case file on me.”

Marle pulled out a kitchen stool and perched on it. “Probably because _they_ know how serious this is. You do remember that documented case thirty years ago, right?”

Eskel winced. “The one with the dog and the guy from the School of the Bear who didn’t want it? You remember how messy that was.” Just thinking about it made him shudder.

“That’s because certain words hold power,” Marle said, sitting with her arms folded in front of her. The look would have been more effective had her hair not been a complete bedhead mess and she was wearing something other than Eskel’s old Van Halen t-shirt and an extremely short pair of flannel shorts with little stars printed all over them. “You of all people should know that; you’re friends with benefits with two sorceresses _and_ a fairy, for crying out loud.”

“ _I know that,_ ” Lambert ground out, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands. “Why the hell do you think I didn’t just drop this little bologna loaf off at the nearest hospital or church and leave? I may be crap at certain things, but I’m not going to walk away from a responsibility.”

He sighed, swaying on his feet. He may be a night owl, but the day’s events had been exhausting. “I just don’t know what to do with it.”

Marle finished her coffee. “Well, for starters, you can stop calling her _it_. She _does_ have a name, I presume?”

Lambert nodded, pulling out a piece of paper from his back pocket. “According to her birth certificate, her name is Bethany. Bethany Beatrice Carlisle.” His lip curled up. “Did you know that you can do name changes on infants younger than a year? Her name was spelled a _lot_ worse before I swapped out all the Ys and phonetic stuff. There’s no way in hell I was going to remember how to spell it otherwise. It was like her parents upended a Scrabble box and picked through the letters until they found something they liked.” Lambert looked at the baby, who was now sleeping soundly. “I’ve been calling her BB, for short.”

“You said her mother fell off the radar?” Marle went to the sink to rinse out the coffee cup.

“Yeah, apparently she signed a bunch of paperwork before BB was born that waived all her rights as a parent. See, she hadn’t wanted her to begin with and was all too happy to sign over all legal obligations to BB’s dad. The guy didn’t have any next of kin either, so…”

Eskel scrubbed his hand through his hair. “So there’s no one to leave her with to raise her.”

“Right in one.”

Marle squared her shoulders. “Well, that settles it. _Obviously_ you aren’t going to be raising her on your own; you’ve got three other men in Kaer Morhen who have dealt with children before. I mean, Ciri’s made it to adulthood; you guys can’t be all that bad at this whole child rearing thing.”

Eskel raised an eyebrow. “Ciri was a bit older than BB here. We didn’t have to do the whole weaning from diapers thing.” Eskel’s eyes widened. “Diapers. Did you bring any from her old place?”

Lambert made a face before gesturing towards the oversized bag sitting on the counter. “Oh, no. I thought I’d just let her marinate in her own juices for a day or three. The CPS worker assigned to my case went with me to the apartment to see what was salvageable. There wasn’t much, BB’s crib was a rickety secondhand accident waiting to happen, so it got scrapped. Kid didn’t have many clothes or gear either, but I guess her dad hadn’t gotten around to getting much, seeing that she’s only a month old.”

“Well.” Marle picked up the carrier. “It takes a village to raise a babe, and you’re in good hands, Peanut.” Going to the guest bedroom, she set the carrier on the bed while she pulled out a large hip-carry laundry basket from the closet and lined it with several soft blankets before gently taking BB out and laying her inside. “It isn’t the best of cribs, but it’ll have to do for a few hours. Once we’ve all had breakfast, we’ll make a trip to the Baby Depot.”

“Count me out,” Eskel said. “I’ve got an early morning commute if I want to head over to another job in time to take care of a noonwraith.” He leaned over the basket on the bed and reached out, his fingers trailing over BB’s cheek. She twitched, but didn’t wake. “Welcome to the family, kiddo.” With that, Eskel clapped his hand over Lambert’s shoulder and left to head back upstairs and get some much needed sleep.

Marle looked down at BB. “You know, she kind of looks like you.”

Lambert snorted. “She has dark hair. That’s about all we’ve got in common.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she teased. “I think she has your nose.”

“Heh, she’d be so lucky.” He looked up from the basket and for the first time since he had barged into her house, Marle saw just how uncertain and _scared_ he was. It wasn’t often that Lambert let his mask of self-confidence slip, and she was honored that he felt comfortable enough to do so around her. “I might not have expected the day to end up this way, but…” he swallowed hard. “I don’t want to fuck this up, Marle.”

She reached out and cupped his face in her hands. Very carefully, she tugged him down to her eye level and kissed him. “You won’t.” She shrugged. “Well, I’m sure you _will_ ; hell, we _all_ will at one point or another. The most important thing is that you’re not going to be doing this all on your own. You’ve got the guys, and you’ve got me. I’m pretty sure you have Keira in some form or fashion, and judging the way that Fiona was with all the kids at Halloween, I’d bet money that she’d be in your corner too.”

“You handled her better than anyone has today,” he commented. “Did you ever want any of your own?”

Marle shook her head. “No. I mean, I _like_ kids and I like being around them, but I also like the fact that once they start getting sticky and bothersome that I can hand them over to their parents and not have to deal with any potential screaming fits.” She picked up the basket and placed it on the floor, where it would be a safer place in case BB happened to somehow tip the thing over during the night. “Even if I could have kids, I wouldn’t want any of my own. It’s one of the reasons Bjorn and I broke it off. Well, one of the _main_ reasons. Speaking of, I’m pretty sure that he’s going to be dropping by Kaer Morhen more frequently than he usually does from now on. He adores babies.”

“You ever regret breaking if off with him?”

She shook her head again. “No. I try to be as honest with myself as possible, and even more so with my partners. Bjorn and I wanted very different things, and we rushed our relationship, moving past a lot of red flags that should have stuck out between us just because we wanted a happily ever after.” Marle leaned against Lambert. “We’re better off as friends than we ever were as lovers.”

He gestured to BB. “And now that this has happened, does it change what’s between…”

Marle held onto his hand. “You’re my friend, first and foremost, Lambert. That doesn’t change because you’re going to be carting around a designer diaper bag and pushing this little Peanut in a top of the line jogging stroller.” She eyed him. “I know you; don’t give me that look. Besides, this whole co-parenting gig works fine with me. BB gets sticky and fussy and I just hand her back to you.” Not being able to resist, she smirked up at him. “Daddy.”

Lambert made a face. “By all the gods, _don’t_ call me that. It sounds weird.”

“That’s not what you said last…”

“I said no such thing and you know it.”

“Yeah, I know. It’s just too damn easy to mess with you right now.” Standing on tiptoe, she kissed his cheek. “Get some sleep. Everything will look better in the morning, just you wait.” As an afterthought, Marle crouched down and waved her hand over the basket.

“I thought you said no Signs over the baby.”

“Simple sleeping spells don’t do any harm, unless you _want_ her waking up in thirty minutes and screaming her lungs out.” She didn’t wait for his answer, leaving the room and closing the door behind her.

Lambert stared at the sleeping baby before sighing and sitting down on the bed to pull off his boots. Undressing, he slipped under the covers, letting the smell of whatever detergent Marle used soothe his jangled nerves. Marle was right; things would look better after a few hours’ worth of sleep. He wasn’t alone in this and even though he was a hundred and ten percent sure that Vesemir and Geralt would give him shit for the mess he had gotten himself into, they wouldn’t let him flounder around on his own.

He stared at the ceiling. Well, they wouldn’t let him flounder around on his own _much_ , at least not without offering their two cents amid smartass commentary. Letting his eyes drift closed, he thought about texting Fiona and bribing her with the promise of waffles to come with him and Marle for the basic baby gear buying. At least he’d have a second person coming along to say no when Marle inevitably tried to stuff the shopping cart full to overflowing with every cute thing she could find. He’d been houseware shopping with her before, so he figured it would be the same thing, except instead of admittedly cute ladles and colanders shaped like the Loch Ness Monster, it’d be stuffed animals and miniature funky striped socks.

Lambert took a deep breath. Things would be all right. There was going to be a _huge_ learning curve, and just like Marle had said, he was more than likely going to screw up more than once before everything was said and done. A strange twinge of anxiety hit him in the gut when he thought back to his own childhood and his hands fisted in the bedsheets. Turning his head, he looked over at the basket again.

“Well, Kiddo, I may not be the best person to raise a kid, but I know one thing’s for damn sure. I’ll be a hell of a lot better at it than _my_ old man was. You’re _never_ going to have to worry about the crap that I had to worry about.” He swallowed, memories of making up excuses for bruises, of listening to his mother cry in the next room, of going to bed so hungry because they’d been too poor to afford groceries for days straight causing bile to rise up in his throat, sharp and bitter, even after all these years.

“No, Peanut. You won’t ever have to worry about that. I _promise_.”


End file.
